Antebellum's Fool
by The.Guiding.Star
Summary: (REVISED. SORRY FOR THE WRONG STORY BEFORE!) "Before the war, nothing could truly separate us. Then the war came and tore us apart. But still I try, still I feel the fragile wires holding us together, still I try to make her mine again. And I will try and try until it kills me." A response for a TFRarePairing Prompt on LiveJournal.


TITLE: Antebellum's Fool

CONTINUITY: _Transformers:_Animated

RATING: PG/K+

SUMMARY: Before the war, nothing could truly separate us. Then the war came and tore us apart. But still I try, still I feel the fragile wires holding us together, still I try to make her mine again. And I will try and try until it kills me.

INSPIRED BY: TFRarePairing's Weekly Request Prompt on LiveJournal

PROMPT: Drift/Botanica – Before The War

Hopefully, by now, you are all acquainted with the Cybertronian terminology I use in this fic. If not….

Body parts (all approximate, and the anatomical chart I use for my stories):

Hands = Servos  
Arms = Support Servos  
Legs = Stabilizing Servos  
Tongue = Glossa  
Feet = Landing Pads  
Shoulders and Knees = Shoulderpads and kneepads, respectively  
Eyes = Optics  
Fingers = Digits  
Hips = Pistons  
Lips = Lip Components  
Mouth = Vocal Receptor  
Teeth = Denta  
Ears = Audio Receptor  
Neck = Chassis Pillar  
Torso/Chest = Chassis  
Body = Frame/Shell  
Brain = Processor  
Sections of brain = Lobes

And time (all approximate, and the chronological chart I use for my stories):

Any time less than a second = Microklik  
Second = Nanoklik  
Minute = Klik  
8.3 Minutes = Breem  
Hour = Cycle  
6 Hours = Joor  
Day (both day and night) = Solar Cycle  
Week = Decacycle  
Month = Orbital Cycle  
6 Months/Half a Stellar Cycle = Orn  
Year = Stellar Cycle  
83 Years = Vorn  
Approx. 100 years = Megacycle

Hope this helps.

DISCLAIMER: _Transformers_: Animated is property of Hasbro.

* * *

Before the war, we were friends. We could speak to one another, as bot to bot, without even the possibility of betraying some cause.

I miss those times. Back before Decepticon and Autobot were political parties, and not sides. She and I, despite our differences, could still talk. Still sit next to each other and just relax. We could even link support servos and we wouldn't have a whole bunch of bots screaming treason.

I miss those solar cycles when we'd come out of some political discussion between the heads of the parties, since she was a notetaker before the war, and we'd see each other. She was always working, never seemed to take a break. Always working around those serious, negative bots (not all of them, but quite a few, mind you), and they would give her a hard time, whether it was about her penbotship, or about how her posture while she took notes, or about how short she was for her bodytype, or how plain and unattractive she looked (whatever the Pit all that had to do with her actual work).  
And I'd make her laugh with a funny expression, or pretending to flirt with her, or some other wisecrack.

_"Tch tch. How you doin'?"_

And always she laughed. Always, she blessed me with a small giggle at the least. Sometimes, that was all I needed to get me through the solar cycle, through the stress of political warfare and rising tensions.

Sometimes, I needed more. More than a sweet-sounding laugh. More than a brightened smile with corona-orange lip components. And, as if she could read my processor, she'd hold her servo out for me to hold.

Her palm, facing upwards, ready to receive my servo should I decide to indulge her. And I did.

See, the first few times were kind of nervous, since we were friends. But as time went by, we got comfortable, and it would be either one of us offering a servo to hold, then the other letting our digits touch and intertwine, then we'd let our servos rest, linked with each other.

Before the war, it was safe to become lovers. We could kiss outdoors, and if any bots saw us, most would praise our **finally**getting serious, our commitment and feelings for each other.

She kissed me first. Or, rather, I wanted to. But I didn't want to force her.

_"I would rather shoot myself than force you."_

"You're too chivalrous, Deadlock."

"Am I, Binary? Am I?"

"Yes. And I love you for it."

"I-wait, wha-"

And though I had made my intentions known first, she initiated the first kiss.

I remember it happened somewhere outside City Hall, after some meeting or other. Behind the large base of a statue, I remember the hesitant yet wanting press of her lip components, the soft metal warm against my thin, scarred lip components. Both of hers on the top lip component, then to the bottom. I copied her, nipping my practically nonexistent ones, first to her top, then to her bottom one. Then to the corner of her vocal receptor, then to her chin plate.  
A quiet whimper escaped her.

I loved her.

I still do.

We would embrace (I don't know, 'make out' seems too degrading) under Cybertron's two moons, kissing and caressing whenever the mounting anger between the two political stances became too much for the both of us.

Before the war, nothing could truly separate us.

The political parties became enemies, factions in a violent, messy war. The beginning of that was when she disappeared. I searched for her, solar cycle after solar cycle, never consuming, recharging only when my body betrayed me and locked my optics offline until cycles later. I never found her then. It's as if she had disappeared off the faceplate of Cybertron.  
At first, I assumed it was her Autobot buddies, that they did something horrible to her for her pacifism and her relationship with me. I felt no shame in shooting off heads and extinguishing sparks with my firearms, taking satisfaction in every hit I had to make.

Then the horrible truth. It wasn't her friends.

It was mine.

Decepticons kidnapped her. Injected things into her, tore things away from her; from her body, reduced the light of my world to nothing more than an experiment, a statistic, a thing.

And what they did then was nothing compared to what they did after.

Treated her like garbage and tossed her away. I found her, her support servo poking out of a lump of trash a refuse crane picked up and almost dumped into an incinerator. When I pulled her out, I saw what they did to her. What my comrades did to her.  
_  
"They were looking for ways to make stronger armies. More bots. Invisible soldiers. So, that's what they did to us. And, now, look at me, Deadlock. What am I going to do…?"_

She cried, then. Bit down on her now teal green lip components and bemoaned her now techno-organic frame. There was no way to reverse this, to make her back what she was before. I still found her beautiful. I admit, I liked the plating on her pistons, and the new shape of her faceplates.

But I know how much she would've liked sparklings, and now that was only a dream. A bitter fantasy.

Something in me changed. Something in me snapped. I tell this story to some friends, once in a while, and they say that change, that snap, was for the better.

They lied.

I then wanted to find a way to stop this pointless war, once and for all. And maybe find her a cure.

I found something worth searching for: The Knights of Cybertron. Skilled, brave warriors that predated even the ideas of Autobot and Decepticon factions. They would know how to end this insanity.

Before the war, I would've seriously plugged a bullet in my processor for leaving behind someone I care about.

War, no matter how much you don't want it to, no matter how hard you try to stay strong, it changes you and twists in your spark like an exploding star.

And this war forced me to find some sort of solution.

"You're leaving, Deadlock?"

"Only for a little while. I promise."

"Promise?"

"Yes. I would ask you to be strong for me, too, but I know you've got a fighter underneath all that anti-war sentiment."

"We may be on different sides now, but please, be safe."

"Of course. You as well."

One last kiss. One final goodbye. Then I left her, the light of my world, for another light. For lights that would be a light, be a victory, to others. I never reckoned it would take so long. Or that it would be so hard.

No one does.

Then Ng happened. The sanctuary. Wing. Dai Atlas. The war reached its peak, and the true colors of bots were exposed. Many were exposed as selfish, caste system-minded bots. Those that weren't survived, but were stepped upon and taken advantage of by those selfish bots. It got so bad that there had to be a third faction, one composed of Bots and Cons and Neutrals alike. By those that just wanted the chaos to end.

No one knows who they really were. They're called many things.

Heroes. Saviors. Traitors. Infidels.

Before the war, no one assumed things right away. But Autobots and Decepticons alike slapped labels upon the League left and right, and the Third Faction's sacrifices were forgotten by the masses.

But I…..I never forgot what they did for me. Besides giving me sanctuary when I turned sides. Besides instating me to a society I told myself I would never be a part of. Besides helping me find her again, after so long. After all my failures, and disappointments, and friends I lost along the way. They helped me reunite me to my Binary.

They never told me what had passed between the stellar cycles we were separated.  
_  
"Hello, Binary, it's been a long-"_

"-No."

"…..Wait, what?"

"You must have me mistaken for someone else."

"No, no I haven't-wha, it's me, Binary, it's me, the former Deadlock-"

"-I am Botanica. And as for you, Deadlock-"

"-No, see, that's what I wanted to tell you. You probably don't recognize me because of my bodychange. I'm an Autobot now, and I've changed my designation to Drift-"

She stopped moving and faced me, and cut through me with cold whispers.

_"-Drift. That is a fitting designation. Perfect for someone that drifted away. When I needed them the most. When bots gave me a hard time because of my chlorophyll-laced organic parts. I don't expect a bot named 'Drift' to stick around, anyway. I need bots that are by my side, bots that society approves of. Not you."  
_  
I suddenly felt like screaming. Or crying. Doing something.

But all I could do was weakly reply.

_"What? What do you mean?"_

A tear leaked from her right optic. It wounded my spark to restrain myself from wiping it away, from caressing her faceplates.

_"Drift…things are different now."  
_  
_"That's crazy. I haven't been gone all that long."_

"Drift…you've been gone for a thousand stellar cycles."

I could've handled that startling fact. I could've bore the weight of her scathing words. Primus, I could handle her not recognizing me.

_"It's best you and I remain friends."  
_  
But when I watched her simply nod her lovely head at me and move in the opposite direction, it was too much.

She didn't love me anymore.

_"No. No, Drift. She still cares about you."_

Two servos, thinner but wider and calloused by the handle of a folded spear, pulled me off the ground.

This bot was Lancer, my good friend and a fellow ninja, who dragged me to her new home in Iacon.

_"Of course she does. She's a pacifist."_

"She still loves you, I believe, but she just can't be with you."

"You don't understand. I'd rather be offline, with my comrades, with my fellow fallen ninjas, with Wing. Anything. Anything but this."

"You don't control her, you know. You can't make her choices. Obviously, she made this decision and you'll have to live with it, like the rest of us."

"All I want to know is why."

Then I saw why.

She was on the support servo of another mech.

I asked Lancer about this. A heavy sigh tunneled from her lithe purple-and-orange form.

"Yes, they're together. They got together, a little after you left Cybertron for your mission."

"Does he treat her well, at least?"

"Sometimes."

"What do you mean 'sometimes'?"

What she told me broke my spark.

Before the war, I would've stuck one of my blades straight through my spark before I left her alone. Especially after what had happened to her.

What was I thinking?

"Well?", Lancer asks me, handing my swords back to me.

Another mech has my Botanica.

A mech that doesn't treat her right.

And it was all my fault.

Another battle rests alongside the one I fight for the Autobots. A battle of the spark. A fight within a fight. One I must win, or die.

"Let the war begin."

* * *

Written for LiveJournal's TFRarePairings group. I'm uploading all my stories because work starts tomorrow, and college starts again this coming Monday, and I know I will not have as much time as I did over the Holiday break to write or post, so….yeah. Not only that, but Internet is still down at my place, and I'm getting more familiar with the workers at this coffee shop (that has free Wi-Fi) than I'd like to be.

Now, first off, what many of you are probably wondering is what kind of title is 'Antebellum's Fool'?

If you don't care for the explanation, skip this and click that arrow, the one in the upper left-hand corner of your screen, back to the main page. But for those that want to know…..

'Antebellum', is a Latin phrase that translates into 'before the war'. 'Ante' = before, or predating, and 'bellum' = war, or great battle. 'Antebellum' refers to any period of time before any great war, but when people use the term, they refer to the decades before the American Civil War between the North and South on the U.S. Mainland.  
That was when slavery was legal in several states, and all states began unfolding their 'Manifest Destiny', expanding westward and robbing land from the Native American peoples that lived in these areas.  
With the intention to teach Native peoples 'civilization', many innocents, Natives and Colonists, Northerners and Southerners alike, lost their land, loved ones, and lives.

Antebellum also tends to refer to the art, landscapes, and music alive before the hardships of the Civil War, hence why you have bands like 'Lady Antebellum' with their country-inspired take on rock, and 'The Civil Wars' with their simple, guitar-laced country soul.

In this case, of course, antebellum refers to the literal meaning. Before the war. Not the war that separated Deadlock and Binary on different factions, different sides, but the war of the spark. When Deadlock becomes Drift, turns to the Autobots, and finds that his lady love is on the arm of another bot. One that did, in fact, betray Ratchet on his search for Arcee by giving codes to her room to Shockwave.

He will fight to love a bot that belongs to another. That is considered foolish. But he doesn't care.

So, hence the title. He is a foolish bot, trapped in his mind, trapped in the time before the war.

If you watched Beast Wars, you'll know that Botanica was once a bot named Binary. Since a lot of the BW Botanica carries into the TFA Botanica (including her relationship with Rattrap), I figure I'd bring this tidbit into the story as well.

A good majority of this story is inspired by Dark-Wild-Cat's comic titled 'The Worth' on Deviantart. It's a beautifully illustrated and executed story, and the first 24 pages are on DA for your viewing convenience.  
I've combined some elements of her story (the Deadlock/Binary relationship, what happened between them up until page 24) with the Visor League plot of my stories (the secret 'Third Faction' that consisted of many visored bots).

If you have any questions, let me know. Otherwise, you can get your comments and concerns down in a review!

Until next time, lovelies.

~Ylysha


End file.
